Anyone know of a more recent estimate then this one from 1999, and preferably one that is better documented than these "hundreds of thousands, if not a million"? Suggestions for search strings also welcome. I just tried http://www.google.de/search... and some variations thereof, which led me to http://intechnochina.com/blog... , where a value of 633 scientists per million is given for China (presumably "active scientists", so not all that are alive, but I am willing to lump the two together if need be). The same source gives 5,171 for Sweden and 110 for India, while http://www.warda.org/warda... states that Africa as a whole has 70. Using the China figure for the whole planet (a simplification only justified by the lack of actual figures), whose population http://math.berkeley.edu/~galen... just (November 18, 2010 11:11:11 UTC+1) gave as 6,856,284,588, we end up with about 4 million. With the Indian figure, it would be about 800,000, so I guess the real number is somewhere in between these two, perhaps closer to India. - Daniel Mietchen from Bookmarklet

Depends on how you define "scientists". People with a university diploma in a science field should be much much more. Research-scientists might be aorund single digit millions ... - Fritz

Any clear definition would do for me, as long as the corresponding data are available. - Daniel Mietchen

By the way, http://www.google.com/search... does not answer my question but brings up a few goodies. - Daniel Mietchen

The NSF has some of this data, http://www.nsf.gov/statist... Global S&E Labor Force - OMG 404 Joe

Thank you, RJR - this seems useful. - Daniel Mietchen